English

The extension of variability properties in gamma-ray bursts to blazars

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2015-10-21 v1

Abstract

Both gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and blazars have relativistic jets pointing at a small angle from our line of sight. Several recent studies suggested that these two kinds of sources may share similar jet physics. In this work, we explore the variability properties for GRBs and blazars as a whole. We find that the correlation between minimum variability timescale (MTS) and Lorentz factor, Γ\Gamma, as found only in GRBs by Sonbas et al. can be extended to blazars with a joint correlation of MTSΓ4.7±0.3\rm MTS\propto\Gamma^{-4.7\pm0.3}. The same applies to the MTSLγ1.0±0.1\rm MTS\propto \it L_{\gamma}^{\rm -1.0\pm0.1} correlation as found in GRBs, which can be well extended into blazars as well. These results provide further evidence that the jets in these two kinds of sources are similar despite of the very different mass scale of their central engines. Further investigations of the physical origin of these correlations are needed, which can shed light on the nature of the jet physics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1509.04896,
  title  = {The extension of variability properties in gamma-ray bursts to blazars},
  author = {Qingwen Wu and Bing Zhang and Wei-Hua Lei and Yuan-Chuan Zou and Enwen Liang and Xinwu Cao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.04896},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS